


like they know the score

by strangesmallbard



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017), The Worst Witch - All Media Types
Genre: Classical Music, Dancing, F/F, Fluff and Humor, Walkmans and Swedish Pop Bands, What Is Art Really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-04-22 03:29:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14299803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangesmallbard/pseuds/strangesmallbard
Summary: Julie throws an arm up. “You’re…You…!”“I am indeed me, Nurse Hubble. I suppose an Ordinary medical education would teach you how to point out the very obvious,” Hecate quips, and oh why does she want to smile. This just doesn’t add up. They’re arguing, are they not? They always argue. It’s something they– Why does she keep blinking like an idiotic owl, and–Julie laughs. Loud and so very bright. It should grate and it doesn’t, and Hecate’s neck suddenly feels very warm. “Not Stevie, then.”Hecate blinks again. “What?”**Two snapshots about music and dancing and just maybe,art.





	like they know the score

**Author's Note:**

> for a prompt fill on tumblr! title is from "songbird" by fleetwood mac.
> 
> (trying to beat this writer's block!)

On their seventh tea (not that Hecate has been keeping count), Julie finds her Walkman. Hecate meant to vanish the thing hours ago, when she meant to finish an updated edition of _Flores et Radices_ and instead, nodded off halfway through a heated corrective annotation on the transference enhancement properties of fibrous roots. She never _nods off_. She blames a certain Founding Stone, its occurrence a year ago notwithstanding.

She could blame a certain slightly smaller Hubble, but well. She completed her assignment with above average marks. Broken Potions Lab window and missing desk. Not. Withstanding.

Now, Julie is cross legged on her arm chair, inspecting the silver box with a curious half-smile. Curiosity never produces anything beneficial. “I didn’t know they recorded audiobooks in Latin.” She waves _Flores et Radices_ before carefully replacing it on the table.

Hecate clears her throat, determined not to feel her collar bunching up warm around her neck. By Julie’s wrist she can see the engraved _HB_ in the Walkman’s strange silver metal and a tiny, garishly tiny pink heart. “It’s…” She could vanish it away, but that would make the curiosity only grow. “…a record of my ingredient findings. That is all.”

Julie’s eyes widen. Her curious smile turns mischievous at the corners and Hecate knows, without a glimmer of a precious doubt, that she just made the worst mistake of her life.

She turns the thing in her hand–Hecate watches the tiny heart spin around and around in same rhythm as her own stupid organ–and watches Hecate’s face with unfathomable scrutiny. “I’ve seen your actual collections journal, remember? You leant me _L-O_ last week. Beautiful art work, by the way.” She shakes the box again. “Ooh, Fleetwood Mac? Had a roommate once who thought Stevie was a real Witch. I thought she was barking mad, but maybe… _”_

“I don’t make art work,” Hecate says, and vanishes the Walkman away without another thought. “If I didn’t properly render the drawi–” she purses her lips and pulls her brows in. She ignores Julie’s pointed and unfairly amused stare. “If I don’t have an accurate depiction of this year’s collections, the results could be disastrous,” she says, dropping the words off quieter than she means to.

Julie’s hand closes over her palm like a venus fly trap. She sighs and drops it, picks up her tea at last. “I suppose maglets don’t have a camera option,” she says. She furrows her brow, and takes a quick sip. “Have the girls seen your journals?”

Hecate carefully takes her seat, beckons her cup off the saucer. “The girls each have a copy of _The Complete Guide to Potionalogical Flora_ for a reason. My work is always in progress and would prove most confusing for a learning Witch.”

Julie’s stare morphs into an entirely confusing smile. “I would have been so angry with you if I found out _yo_ u could draw before you started letting Millie draw in class.”

“Draw ingredients,” Hecate says, feeling her lips twitch up. “Not unruly familiars.”

Julie rolls her eyes, and shifts in her seat. “It’s art, HB! You’ve got shading and lighting and color scheme. There’s no way around it.”

“Yes,” Hecate takes a sip. “How dare a flower look precisely like a flower.”

Julie throws an arm up. “You’re…You…!”

“I am indeed me, Nurse Hubble. I suppose an Ordinary medical education would teach you how to point out the very obvious,” Hecate quips, and oh why does she want to smile. This just doesn’t add up. They’re arguing, are they not? They always argue. It’s something they– Why does she keep blinking like an idiotic owl, and–

Julie laughs. Loud and so very bright. It should grate and it doesn’t, and Hecate’s neck suddenly feels very warm. “Not Stevie, then.”

Hecate blinks again. “What?”

She points with her cup. “Beethoven, yeah? Equally dramatic, but not something you’d hear at a pub after four in the morning, when the riff-raff moves on.” She chuckles and shifts her legs up, tucks them underneath her. “Regular pubs anyway. As if those are any fun. Am I off, Miss Hardbroom?”

This now familiar action tugs at the weight on Hecate’s chest. “If you want a Beethoven fan, do feel free to spend the evening with Miss Bat.”

Julie smiles again, disarmingly. “I’m _close,_ aren’t I?”

Hecate hums. “No,” she says. “I don’t listen to Wizards.”

Julie stares. “ _Beethoven_ …is…?”

Hecate feels laughter burble up like indigestion. “Yes, a Wizard. In fact,” her voice warbles, and she folds her hands in front of her in order to steady it. “He was the Great Wizard in 1885, before the Great Fairy Rebellion.”

Julie stares and stares and Hecate stares back without blinking, physically willing her lips to still, straining her forehead with the effort. Julie looks at her cup and starts to say something and closes her mouth before she can say a word and– Scowls. “Oh my god.” She looks back up. “You’re messing with me.”

Hecate’s lips twitch up again, and she lets herself twist them up. She waves her hand and the kettle rises from the table. “More tea, Nurse Hubble?”

“Julie,” she murmurs, and breaks into laughter again. She runs a hand through her hair. “Beethoven a bloody…I should have, _God.”_ She looks at her, warm and confusing all over again and Hecate feels the troublesome mirth fade away. No, settle. Into something else. She watches Julie Hubble on her sitting room couch, and feels no need to run. No need to keep arguing and arguing until her mind–

Nothing is knots. It should be the tea, and it’s not the tea. Nothing makes sense.

“Hecate Hardbroom, Artist, Potions Mistress, and _Prankster_ ,” she lifts her head on the last word and offers her cup for more tea. “Who knew.”

Hecate can only. _Laugh._ It becomes an undignified snort. “Who knew,” she says.

 

* * *

 

 

By sheer luck, if Hecate believed in such a thing, the last hour of the annual Winter Solstice Dance  is not excruciating. It has backtracked into simply terrible, and well. Hecate is often told she should practice optimism. None of the girls are especially rowdy, everyone is socializing amicably, and Ethel Hallow appears to be avoiding Mildred Hubble at all costs. While Ada still hopes for a friendship, Hecate severely hopes for a strict lack of Code Breaking in the near future.

The ceiling is decorated in a hundred floating paper-mache stars, arranged artfully in real constellations. _Artfully._ When she was a girl, they were content with simple and elegant Winter Solstice celebrations. A ritual performed by each coven, to honor the new season. None of this _modern music_ with those insufferable lyrics. None of this–

“You know, I think I just saw Dimity dancing with Miss Tapioca.”

Hecate goes warm. She scoffs. “She’s supposed to be _chaperoning.”_

Julie leans back on the wall, arms crossed. She’s wearing a blue shirt with sleeves that flow like a summertime dress. Hecate doesn’t realize she’s staring until she catches Julie’s gaze. She can’t even scowl. Oh, this is terrible. “The pros and cons of a six person staff. We’re all on duty, but we can afford a break or two,” she steps closer along the wall, and grins. “You want some punch while you glower?”

The music changes to a slow, melancholy tune where a woman frankly sings like she’s wailing over a piano. The girls quickly dissipate from the dance floor, and drift towards too many different corners.

Hecate fights a grimace. “It tastes like slug mucus.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Julie says, and uncrosses her arms. “Do you want a cookie, then? Millie tells me they’re _actually edible this time._ I don’t know if I want to know what that means.”

 _You here,_ Hecate thinks and watches her, _just you here._ The words just stop in her throat, and no matter what, she cannot manage to let them out. Instead, she looks around the room, mindful of who could be watching, that inescapable rumor mill always turning, and steps just a bit closer. She wants to offer a hand, an arm, mention the paper mache stars and constellations, silly, silly things.

“I have something for you,” she says, and clears her throat. She waves her hand and offers a silver container of hot chamomile tea. “I believe you left this in my office last week.”

“Oh my god,” she takes it and opens the lid to a puff of steam. “I could kiss you right now.” She blanches. “Er, well. Later. Maybe. If you–”

“Yes,” Hecate says and itches to step away, itches to step closer. Her face grows warm and she looks away, looks up at all the floating paper. She clears her throat. “The dance is…nearly…but then, of course, I have rounds.” She takes a deep breath and looks back, finds a hesitance she rarely sees. She lets herself smile. “Afterwards, we can have more tea. Before you have to go.”

Julie grins. “Brilliant! I mean, yes. Afterwards. Chaperoning and slug punch and all of that.” She lifts away from the wall, and takes a sip. “Thank you, by the way. For the tea. It’s perfect.”

Hecate tries to say _You’re welcome_ and she can already hear it come out high pitched and ridiculous, and so she smiles, quickly, and ducks her head. Inspects her dress sleeve in order to not duck her head after all. A reasonable Witch does not not duck.

The music changes again, turns jaunty and terribly familiar. The girls run back to the dance floor with a cheer and a few too many yells, and Julie turns towards what Felicity Foxglove called, _the DJ Booth_. She lays a hand on Hecate’s arm. “Is that….?” The lyrics ring out and Hecate lets out a very long sigh. Julie lets go of her arm, and doubles over in laughter. “It _is!_ I can’t believe it.”

She raises a brow. “Pray tell, what is exciting about…ABBA?”

Julie gives a smile that is certainly not glittering. “I danced to _Super Trooper_ at my Prom! With Michael…oh darn, I’ve forgotten the poor idiot’s last name. He ditched me to–hang on.” Julie’s eyebrows raise. “You know them?”

Hecate tilts her head. “They acquired popularity in the Witching World when I was young. I couldn’t walk ten paces out of my room without hearing a song.”

Julie looks at her and leans down to deposit her container of tea. She reaches out a hand. “You know,” she says, softly. “You’re a much better date than Michael Whatever-His-Name even if you don’t want to dance.”

Hecate swallows. She can’t just _dance_ with Julie Hubble at the Winter Solstice Dance, that would be! That would be. That just. She stares at her hand and stares at Ada, dancing with Dimity now, Miss Tapioca laughing at something Davina said, the girls dancing in the middle and laughing and not becoming entombed in ice, running around the room and throwing cookies at each–oh, that’s a detention, Beatrice Bunch–and she catches sight of Mildred, twirling around with Enid and Maud and likely to get a concussion right under their noses and she absolutely. Definitely cannot dance with Julie Hubble.

She takes her hand. It’s warm, from the tea. “A date?” she says, quiet.

She’s pulled forward, out of the shadows, under the paper stars and they’re swaying, hands locked together, not terribly close to the rest of the school, not so close she’s overwhelmed by all that potential chaos and in danger of being pelted by cookies. “Next weekend? After exams are over?” Julie says, and brushes a hand against her shoulder, just for a moment. “If you’d like.”

Hecate’s hands don’t shake. She pulls them the last few steps forward. “Perhaps at a location devoid of slug mucus,” she says, and does not duck her head. “And with real stars.”

Julie smiles, and points up. “So, you’ve been admiring them too, Miss _Art_ broom?”

Hecate rolls her eyes.

The song ends, and another begins. Something slow to end the evening. Hecate suddenly wishes for– Wants to– Perhaps, to guide Julie’s hand to her shoulder and settle one on her waist. Let their hands clasp and just go, go on without nerves fraying her ends or the school falling apart, just settle onwards and together. She’s never had a reason to dance before, and she must always have a reason. A Witch’s gift is her reason, and sometimes reason isn’t…enough. Sometimes it doesn’t make all the sense it should make. _Silly,_ her mind offers. _A waste of time and energy._

“So, ABBA,” Julie starts and lets go of her hands, and shakes her shoulders to the beat. “Are they on your Walkman, then?”

Hecate opts to sway. “‘I’m no fan of a mystery,” she says, curling the corner of her lips up. “But do feel free to keep guessing.”

Julie tries to teach her to shake her shoulders too, and doesn’t laugh when she can’t, just takes her hands again, and spins her underneath an arm. In the distance, she can see Mildred still smiling, still spinning with her friends, un-concussed.

Afterwards, her mind offers again, trying again. There’s an Afterwards.

“Oh, you can bet on that,” Julie says, and spins her again.


End file.
